


With a Little Help from my Friends

by LibbyMaeBrown



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Cynthia Murphy (mentioned) - Freeform, Evan Hansen (mentioned) - Freeform, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Larry Murphy (mentioned) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 21:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11216913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibbyMaeBrown/pseuds/LibbyMaeBrown
Summary: It's a long road from the reveal in the Murphy kitchen to Zoe and Evan's conversation at the Orchard. The damage to her family is just one of many battles Zoe has to face in the meantime. So what happens when Zoe returns to school after learning the truth about Connor's note? How does she begin again?





	With a Little Help from my Friends

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own these characters.

Zoe tightened her grip around the cup of coffee as another gust of chilly wind rolled across the near empty courtyard on a crisp Wednesday in October. Yeah, the coffee was the shitty kind that spouts out of some antiquated, button operated dispenser in the school cafeteria. And sure, the coffee isn't that hot anymore and won’t really doing much to keep her hands warm. And no, shitty, not that hot coffee with a single pack of sugar doesn't really count as lunch but fuck it. As she leaned back against the metal pole with her legs stretched out against the covered sidewalk linking the science building and auditorium, Zoe found it pretty tough to care about whether this was a proper lunch according to any school endorsed food pyramid.

The idea of her mom having the presence of mind right now to buy bread and lunch meat and pretzels and everything else was beyond laughable. _Though,_ Zoe thought to herself, _it's not like Cynthia Murphy was ever June Cleaver on the school lunch front anyways._ Since her mom had pretty much descended into a near catatonic state after last week (who could blame her though?), Zoe figured she was on her own for buying or preparing her own meals for a bit. As for her dad…ugh. Even thinking about her parents and their own pain was completely intolerable. 

_Fuck_. At least she's finally getting an appetite back. After the...Zoe struggled to find the right term. Disaster? Nope. Murphy Family Meeting of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee? Ehhh a bit closer. The Complete Shit Show, Life Meltdown Inducing, Fiasco of a Dinner Revelation Where Your Boyfriend Ripped Apart the Tentative Bonds Holding Your Family Together and Shattered Your Heart All in One Agonizing Blow? _Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.  
_

It’s hard to prioritize food after a situation like that, but several days of tears, heartbreak, intermittent vomiting from stress, and self-loathing of the highest order will make anyone hungry. So where does this leave Zoe? Still sitting by herself on the cold ground in the damn courtyard with a crappy cup of coffee. Cause to get to the actual food part of the poorly designed school cafeteria, you must first walk past rows of lunch tables teeming with teenagers honing in on the latest gossip to walk through the red double doors. Which in this particular instance, happened to be Zoe.

Yay.

As someone who multiple teachers would likely describe as “self-possessed”, Zoe usually prided herself on not really giving a damn about what other people said about her. When you grow up with a brother like Connor and all the turmoil that comes with a volatile relationship like that, it behooves you to develop some personal resilience. So any other time in her life, Zoe could hardly be bothered to let the opinions of others affect her sense of self.

As it turns out, nothing kills a sense of resilience quite like receiving death threats after your dead brother’s (fake) suicide note gets posted on Facebook.

So in her haste to escape from the hell that is having several hundred pairs of eyes tracking you as they start to whisper about you and all your apparent failings as a human being, Zoe opted to slap two crumpled bills on the cafeteria counter and hastily pour herself a cup of mediocre coffee before she could begin to take in any of the words she imagined being muttered around her.

_Facebook. Stuck up bitch. Connor Project. Dead. Evan Hansen. Her fault. Should have known.  
_

She gave another shiver and tugged the cuffs of her denim jacket down as the cold wind nipped at her exposed hands. It’s funny (not funny haha, funny fucked up) to think how she and her parents ferociously tore into each other over “whose fault it was” right before dear Evan Hansen graciously shared his little moment of truth with them. That’s like arguing over who left a candle burning on the kitchen table only to find that someone has thrown a fucking firebomb through your front window.

Besides. There is nothing _nothing_ the kids at school or the trolls online could say to top the words in her head. Zoe pulled her legs up and hugged them to her chest with her free arm. Leaning her forehead against her knees, she ran through her own litany of self-reflection.

_Was Connor’s death my fault?_ _Sure. Why the hell not? I was always a bitch to him anyways. Why would he have loved me or wanted to stick around for me? Why wouldn’t he have hated me? Why wouldn’t he have hated all of us?_

_Was I a stupid, blind, worthless idiot to get taken in by a sick, twisted boy desperate for attention and some fucked up idea of what he thought a family should be? Yes. God, yes. Just stupid and selfish and horrible and so so so worthless god how did I do or say the things I did just such an idiot and stupid dirty whore idiot terrible daughter and sister and everything else god I kissed him and let him touch me and I wanted him god I wanted him to how could I want him…_

“Zoe? Hey, Zo.”

Zoe’s intensifying spiral of self-hatred was interrupted by the soft but insistent intrusion of Marielle Kean’s husky voice. She lifted her head up from her knees to gaze up at the tall bass player.

_Marielle. My friend. My best friend. Is she still my friend? Jesus, do I even have friends anymore after this mess?_

Now that Marielle had captured Zoe’s attention, she seemed a little unsure what to do with it. She shifted back and forth on her stylish penny loafers and seemed more interested in gently tugging on the long ponytail pulled over her shoulder rather than making eye contact with Zoe.

“Is it…it okay if I sit here? Maybe you’re up for some company?”

Zoe blinked slowly and let her legs slide back down to rest against the pavement before softly clearing her throat.

“Oh. Yeah sure. Come on.”

She was surprised to hear how raspy her own voice sounded. How many days had it been since she spoken out loud?

Marielle lowered her lanky frame to the ground and propped herself up against the pole directly across from Zoe’s so they could face each other. Possibly in the interest of letting people get past them if necessary, she tucked her long legs beside her and began running her fingers up and down the side of her shoe.

They sat there in silence for a beat or two as Zoe watched Marielle drag her fingers back and forth across the stitching in the leather before her newly acquired companion broke the silence again.

“So. Do you think we’ll see you at practice tomorrow? I mean uh no rush obviously! It’s not really that big a deal. Just stupid jazz band. I was just uh wondering cause you know you haven’t been for the last two, and we just sound pretty lame without out guitarist cause you know uh a bass can only take you far. But I also know uh that that you’ve had some…stuff…going on. So. I just wanted to. You know…check.”

If Zoe didn’t already feel so wholly removed from the entire situation, she probably would have laughed at how the eternally poised, even-keeled Marielle stumbled through her rushed speech before awkwardly trailing off at the end. Hell, the bassist’s face had started to flush after the second uncharacteristic “uh” popped up in her little monologue. But as it was, Zoe could only shrug before answering noncommittally.

“Yeah, I think so, Marielle. At least I want to. It’s just that things have been weird, and I don’t know that Marcus really…”

“Oh screw Marcus. You can’t tell me that you’ll let an asshole like him keep you from coming back to the band.”

Zoe couldn’t say how she thought this conversation would unfold, but she certainly hadn’t anticipated this turn of events. Marielle losing her cool about their dipshit of a drummer? That _never_ happens, even when she’s totally provoked by Marcus’s typical level of bullshit. Normally Zoe would be all for this whole righteous indignation thing, but the shock on her face must have been apparent to her friend.

Marielle shook her head at Zoe and implored her, “C’mon, girl. I know you heard him the yesterday when he made that crack about your parents. I saw you standing at your locker while he was running his big mouth. It wasn’t right that he said any of that, and it wasn’t right that you had to hear it.”

Marielle stopped short as she seemed to hesitate over how to continue, but she visibly gathered herself up and started again as she stared down at the piece of broken pavement next to Zoe’s backpack. 

“And it wasn’t right that none of us called him on it right then and there. Susannah and I said something after you left, but that…it wasn’t enough or soon enough. And I’m sorry.”

_Well fuck me_.

It wasn’t until she saw a smile begin crack across Marielle’s dark face that Zoe realized her inner narrative voice had taken a turn for the audible. She felt her face heat up as her friend let out a quiet chuckle.

“ _There_ she is,” Marielle stated slyly. “There’s that famous Zoe Murphy explicative riddled commentary. History’s been dull as sin without it. Su and I were worried that we’d actually have to taking class notes without your _charming_ comments scribbled in the margins. We just wouldn’t stand a chance on the AP exam without you informing us what sorts of things rhyme with ‘Nantucket’.”

“Ha ha ha,” Zoe wearily intoned. “I’m here to entertain. Though I’m not really sure I’ve been providing the kind of entertainment we’d normally shoot for, ya know? Everything’s kinda taken a turn for the…”

“Macabre?” Marielle offered. “Twisted? Emotionally invasive? Completely screwed up? The worst scum of human kind on social media? Yeah, I think you can take your pick on this one.”

Zoe quietly scoffed, “Yeah. Let’s go with all of the above.” _Who can blame them though?_

The tentative smile evaporated off of Marielle’s face as her entire expression turned stricken.

“Zo…you can’t really think, I mean, it’s not…”

_Shit. I’ve got to get my blood sugar up if I’m really saying all these things out loud without realizing it._

Zoe felt that now familiar defensiveness well up inside her.

“Seriously, Marielle?” she began incredulously. “How could I _not_ think it? I got all the posts and tweets and anonymous calls reminding me it’s all my fault and that I’m a stupid bitch who should have died instead of Connor. You think just cause it’s said online that those assholes in the cafeteria aren’t saying it too? That they don’t all think I’m the villain in this tragic whatever it is, and that Evan fucking Hansen is th…”

She abruptly cut off. _No._ This little “Sharing Time” had hit its time limit. Not going there.

To her credit, Marielle stood her ground under the onslaught of Zoe’s heated words. Her face took on a soft expression, but she held eye contact, mercifully choosing not to comment on the tears that were no doubt brimming in Zoe’s eyes or to look at her with the sympathetic look that Zoe had come to despise when faced with strangers and acquaintances.

“What did…I mean, what was…crap. Okay…so were you and Evan like…a thing?”

Zoe froze. Not telling her close friends about her budding relationship with Evan hadn’t been too difficult at first. Su and Marielle were clearly wary of hitting her with too many personal questions right after everything with her brother. That had always been a tough subject even in the best of circumstances. They both knew about the note in Connor’s pocket but never learned anything about the exact contents other than that it had been intended for Evan Hansen (or so they all thought.) Hell. They didn’t even know that it mentioned Zoe by name until Alana posted the letter online last week, triggering this whole shit show.

So when Evan wanted to keep their relationship quiet, she went along with it for a while because it was beautifully easy just to have something that was _theirs_. Some part of their world that was that was only them.

What seemed reasonable and sweet before now felt exposed for what it really was. A complete lie. He had lied to her. She had lied to her friends. Lies of words and omissions. God. They would hate her. Whatever Zoe’s other sins may be, she never thought she’d be a liar.

What would the two girls say when they found out? When they learned that Zoe made the first move while sitting on her _dead brother’s bed_. That she skipped band practices and let others attribute the absences to her grief when she was actually with Evan.

That she went into Evan’s bedroom and sat on his bed, allowing his trembling hands to slide the denim jacket off her shoulders. That she breathlessly gasped _“Evan, please”_ into his ear with one hand wrapped around the back of his neck as the other grasped for his belt buckle. That she let him clumsily pull the clothing from her body and press her into the mattress. That neither of them had any clue how to really go about the whole thing, but that it was okay cause they were learning it _together._ That she kept that first time and each time after that as a secret to ponder in her heart.

What a fucking joke.

And as for telling them all the rest? Every dirty, vile secret that Evan revealed last week when he unleashed complete devastation on the Murphy family? The idea of even saying the words out loud and making it all real filled Zoe an actual, physical pain and an urge to throw up. No fucking way.

Marielle nodded a bit as she took Zoe’s silence as an apparent affirmation and let out a sigh. Zoe didn’t even realize the other girl had been holding her breath.

“I know we never asked, but I guess I’m not really shocked. You never really said anything, but it seemed like there was something there after his speech. I know y’all had gotten to be closer through all the Connor Project stuff, and Su and I kind of thought you might be _whatever_ on the sly. Not in a sketchy way or anything. Just in a…low visibility kind of way. But now…maybe, I mean, were we wrong? What with all that shit over the past couple of days, and then I don’t think Evan’s even been at school this week.”

Zoe pressed her hand over her eyes for a few moments and worked to steady her breathing. This had the dual benefit of allowing her to rub away any sign of tears and buying herself some time to decide how honest she wanted to be. Cause if she had learned nothing else, wasn’t it that total honesty is a real bitch to everyone involved?

"No. No, we're not dating. I guess we were. But it was...God. It was so fucked up. I know I didn’t outright tell either of you, and I’m sorry. I can't really explain it. I can’t…or maybe won’t? I don’t know. I just…I don’t want to talk about Evan.”

What the hell did it say about Zoe that even as she brushed the question off, her mind immediately zeroed in on Evan’s apparent absence? She had spent the past few days working so hard to avoid him that it never occurred to her that her success stemmed from the fact that he wasn’t even here.

_Coward,_ she thought bitterly. Zoe was in no mood to feel empathetic towards Evan’s foibles, anxiety, and whatever the fuck it was that kept him from being a normal human being for once in his miserable life. The quirks and vulnerabilities that once attracted her to this shy, strange boy seemed so different in this post-truth existence of his utter betrayal.

But still. Still. She had liked him, wanted him, maybe even _loved_ him. Maybe she still did. Maybe it had all been a manipulative lie. Maybe the raging bitterness within her would never really go away, but could she hate Evan? _Hate?_ God, he probably deserved it but…no. Whatever else she felt, this strange sensation of her love, her fury, her desire, and her hurt woven together like a braid was not hate.

She was startled to feel the warm press of Marielle’s arms around her shoulders. She hadn’t even realized that she had pulled her legs back up to her chest to lay her forehead on her knees like a child or that her friend had sidled up beside her to enfold her in a loose embrace. Zoe could still hear hear the wind and feel it catching at her loose hair as it whipped across the sides of her face. But the cold that nipped earlier failed to touch her now as her friend blocked the chill of the wind with her body.

The stammers and uncertain starts of her earlier speech completely disappeared as Marielle quietly began in an earnest, serious tone.

"Zoe. Listen, you don't have to tell me. I mean, you can, you totally always can. But I'm not gonna be offended or hurt if there are things you can't or don't want to share. I know I haven't really been…” Zoe heard the catch in Marielle’s voice as she pushed to continue.

“…been there as much in the past few weeks." 

Zoe felt a strange choking noise rise up in her throat as she uselessly waved her hand in a weak flutter that could either mean “Don’t worry about it” or “Get the hell out of here.” Marielle chose to ignore this unhelpful gesture for which Zoe was grateful. She felt the tall girl shift a bit beside her as Marielle straightened up with her arms still enclosed around Zoe.

"No, dude. I'm serious. This semester has been shit for you in a way I don't know that Su and I will ever really get. But I feel like I left you high and dry cause I didn't know what to do or say or anything. I was worried that I couldn’t be enough…couldn’t be good enough for what you needed. And that's messed up. I should have known better. Screw it. I did know better, and I still let you down. I can't make up for that, but you gotta know that you can always talk to me. You're never obliged or anything, and I won't pester you about it. But I’ve got your back. Always."

Even as tears returned to fill her eyes, Zoe lifted her head to glance up at her friend. There was no mistaking the determination she saw there in that face. Not pity. Not judgment. Not hesitation. It was just…Marielle. _Her friend. Her best friend. Still._

“Zo,” Marielle started as she nudged the smaller girl, “There’s no such thing as a universe where I don’t love ya. Seriously. You’ve been my buddy from the first day you got me busted for laughing during 4th grade assembly to that time you peer pressured the shit out of me to buy an instrument I didn’t know how to play to whatever the hell kind of trouble you’ll get me into ten years from now.”

There was no holding back a laugh at the memory of having to literally drag Marielle’s reluctant ass into the back room of the music shop with its “Going Out of Business Sale” and practically waxing poetic about how joining a band would just be _so freaking cool._

It came together by virtue of some heavenly power, Zoe’s power of persuasion, the cheap prices, and Su’s commentary from the sidelines about how girls in bands were “sexy”. Su claimed authority on this topic by virtue of being out and proud. Zoe noted that Su had only ever dated fellow soccer girls who sure as shit didn’t know how to read music. Su told her to shut it. Marielle folded under the combined pressure and handed over two months of babysitting cash in exchange for a used, honey blonde Fender Precision Bass with a small scratch on the headstock along with a free Dave’s Music Emporium shirt thrown in for free.

It was only after the completion of said transaction that Marielle admitted that she (along with all the midfielders on the varsity women’s soccer team of their cross-town rival according to Zoe) had no clue how to read music, _but_ that she definitely liked the movie _August Rush_ so that seemed like a step in the right direction.

It was short laugh and sounded more like a cough than anything actually humorous, but damn it felt good to laugh at _something_. Judging by the delighted grin on Marielle’s face, it sounded good to hear as well.

“If I’ll follow your lead on buying that stupid Fender, then I’ll follow your lead on this one. So if you need me to delete your Facebook, ask Su’s exes beat the shit out of Evan Hansen,” she pretended not to notice the disapproving arch of Zoe’s eyebrow, “…or any other guy in this school, or just sit with you on a cold as hell sidewalk and listen, I’m all in. You know Susannah is too.”

At the mention of the missing member of their little trio, Marielle gave Zoe a gentle squeeze and lovingly rolled her eyes before continuing.

“On that note. I think that girl is still awkwardly hovering by the physics lab right now. She worried that you’d feel like we were ambushing you if we both came over. So we should probably go rescue her at some point.”

Marielle leaned in and added in a conspiratorially tone, “Plus, she bribed the Jimmy John’s guy to illegally deliver on campus via the sketchy back road by the cross country trails. Your lunch is in her purse. Because that,” as she paused to shoot Zoe’s (now cold) coffee a dirty look, “is _not_ a meal, young lady.”

In the eight years of their friendship, Zoe doubted that Marielle had ever given a lengthy, impassioned speech like that for…well, anything. That she would give one for Zoe was…was really something. To know that her two best friends didn’t _hate_ her, that the closest she would ever have to sisters wanted to help. It didn’t make the pain go away, or stop the personal harassment, or fix anything with her parents, but damn, maybe it was a start to rebuilding that resiliance.

She reached up and grasped Marielle’s hand still resting on her shoulder. Zoe could feel the telltale callouses of a bassist’s fingertips as she took a deep, steadying breath.

“I…I don’t know what to say. Just. Thanks, I guess. For everything. I’ve just felt so…so. Shit, I don’t even know.”

Zoe hesitated before continuing, softly shaking her head as she searched for the right words to _somehow_ explain.

“I don’t know. But we can figure it out, yeah?”

Marielle unwound her arms from around Zoe’s shoulders and pushed against the pole to lift herself off the cold pavement. She paused to brush the grit of the sidewalk off her hands as she gazed down at her friend with that same look of determination before reaching out her hand to pull Zoe up from the ground.

“Yeah, Zo. We’re gonna figure it out. You’re not alone on this one. We’ve got you.”


End file.
